"The Burning of the Temple of Forgiveness" by AlmostJaded on Flickr
Last week we approached a word that everyone knows but not everyone completely understand. This week, we’re going to talk about the fourth trait you’ll need for a successful marriage and one that seems to be pretty scarce these days: forgiveness.
First, a question: do you want to be right or do you instead want the gifts that come from trusting your partner and their explicit trust of you?
If you’re at all considering marriage, then there’s no better time than now to polish up on your forgiveness skills. This means seeking forgiveness and readily giving it too. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to say and do things that will be hurtful, disrespectful, dismissive, uncaring, and unsupportive. You’re going to do and say things in frustration, anger, self-centeredness, laziness and forgetfulness. You’re going to make mistakes. Tons and tons of them, I promise you that. Your mistakes will have a cost but what you do with them may have an even greater cost. I have seen hundreds of couples in my office and thousands of individual mistakes. It’s consistently what is done with those mistakes rather than the mistakes themselves that injure and endanger the sacred nature of marital trust.
It is our nature to make mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn and to grow and to become stronger, better people from all the mistakes we make. There is, however, the same opportunity to destroy the intimate bond of trust from our response to the very same mistakes. Blame and shame of ourselves or our partner add a punitive tone to the simplicity of a mistake. Anger or denial, complete avoidance or emotional and sexual withdrawal, complaining – all of this better serves a relationship’s demise than any mistake ever could. Our partner’s pain doesn’t make us their victimizer. The pain we feel doesn’t make us a victim either. The pain is as understandable as the mistakes that are made.
“I am so sorry. What I did and what I said wasn’t okay. Please forgive me.”
Those words open a doorway to the process of reconciliation. Reconciliation is more protective of the marital trust than caring about protecting ourselves. These are the words that declare the accountability to ownership. Your words and actions are your own and not at all because of what someone else said or did. Don’t defend or justify what someone else is seeking forgiveness for. What you did or said is not who you are. It’s not representative of who you are to your partner or of how they feel for you.
As we ask our other’s forgiveness we must be prepared to trust in their forgiveness in us, in our “forgiveability.” If we cannot understand - and in that understanding forgive ourselves – how, then, can our partner ever trust in any forgiveness we claim to give them?
We forgive our most endeared because our forgiveness counts most. Our spouse relies on us to best understand and, in that understanding, best know them. Our forgiveness affirms that knowing.
“I forgive what you did and said. I know you well enough to know that what you did isn’t who you are. That what you said, in the way you said it, doesn’t reflect how much I trust you. Of course I forgive you.”
A good marriage is a safe place to make mistakes. If you’re ready for marriage then you must feel prepared to create and maintain an environment of safety. Your children will one day be watching you and their mother or father make mistakes - mistakes at home, mistakes in the car, mistakes, too, with them. Will it be okay in their little minds that they make mistakes? Will you be one that will know them beyond their mistakes? Will it be safe for them?
If you’re ready to make mistakes (at least 18,472 of them) and ready to seek, give, and receive forgiveness, then you’re one step closer to being ready for a great marriage!
So far we have a pretty strong table. We have one that has enough integrity as a tri-pod to hold its own. A tabletop of ownership with three independently strong legs of love, honesty, and forgiveness working in collective harmony to define and support its function. However, add just one more leg and any pressure placed on it would be equally distributed. Just one more leg, and the balance created by all will sustain its integrity of strength. I’ll tell you that fourth leg next week!
Tags: children, family, marriage, relationships by Greg
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Greg is a family and marriage counselor and addiction specialist practicing in Washington. He has over 25 years of experience helping people find themselves and break habits that don't work. For more information about Greg, click the About link above.